FILM REVIEW – MY NAME IS BRUCE (2007)
A juvenile and
yet very funny comedy-horror film toying heavily on the rampant difficult to
work with egotism of its star, Bruce Campbell, playing himself.
When a group
of teenagers out for kicks, decide to vandalize an old graveyard, they
unwittingly incur the wrath of an aincent Chinese War God, (and the God of Bean
Curd) Guan-Di, who kills all but one of them. The surviving kid happens to be
an obsessive fan of the Evil Dead actor, Bruce Campbell, and as Guam-Di starts
decimating his home town, Gold Lick, the kid kidnaps Campbell to get him to
fight the demon.
Campbell is
unfortunately nothing like the character Ash from his Evil Dead films. He is a
drunkem washed out, womanizing egomaniac, drinking whisky from a dog bowl while
crying out in paranoia that the film community are tring to make him look
pathetic.
In reality,
he is being written out of his latest monster movie, and his agent, played by
Ted Raimi, who played Joxer in Xena Warrior Princess (which Campbell also
appeared in) seems indifferent though it is his promise of a big surprise for
Campbell’s looming birthday that leads Campbell to think the expectation that
he is to fight the demon is just a new and lucrative film role for him to play.
Ted Raimi,
brother to Sam Raimi, wjo made the Evil Dead films, also plays Gold Lick’s sign
writer, conscientiously writing up the town’s dwindling population figures as
Guan-Di wipes them out. He even changes the sign as he himself becomes a
victim.
Campbell falls for Grace Thorsen’s character of his devoted
fan’s mum, (Thorsen herself a player from The Evil Dead films). Taylor Sharpe
plays Jeff, the geeky gothic number one fan.
As it dawns
on Campbell that Guan-Di is real, he can’t run away quick enough, throwing old
people, children and pets behind him as he high tails it out of town. Only
learning that Jeff is going to try to fight the demon alone makes him finally
turn hero and save the day.
It’s been
done before, with the films, Fright Night,
Three Amigos and Galaxy Quest depicting film stars for characters they
have played. My Name is Bruce does it well though, taking Campbell’s
self-depreciation to glorious extremes.
Guan-Di looks
genuinely sinister and the Cat Balou type singing by an onscreen wandering
minstrel duo of performers balladeering on his nature is very funny. The film
is far too self reverential though, saturated with in jokes about it’s star and
his varied career, with roles for old pals – Campbell admits to having appeared
in as many lousy films as good ones. When the gags work though, they really
work.
Arthur Chappell
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